Overcoming the reading and language barrier to boost farm safety
Making it easier for people from diverse backgrounds to work in agriculture could help with labour shortages. People in Paddocks founder and evokeAG. Startup Program alumni, Sam Pritchard aims to do just that.
by Emily Malone
Regional and rural journalist and communications professional
Wagga Wagga, New South Wales
View more contributions
Dyslexia probably isn’t the first thing you think of when it comes to farm safety, but it’s front of mind for People in Paddocks (PiP) founder Sam Pritchard.
“It is estimated by the ADA that dyslexia affects one in five Australians. My experience in corporate and family farming suggests that dyslexia is prevalent in agriculture, and could be closer to one and three in our industry,” said Sam.
“That means potentially a third of our agricultural workforce may struggle to read messages, instructions and safe work procedures.”
Sam was the National Human Resources and Work Health and Safety Manager at a large agricultural business that employed more than 150 staff on farms spread across five states in Australia.
“I found that digital safety systems were complex, expensive and that workers just wouldn’t use them,” she said.
RELATED: Just like we grow our crops we must grow our people’ solving ag’s workforce challenge
From spotting the gap to developing an app
When Sam established her own consultancy in 2022 she set about establishing farm safety systems that worked for businesses and the people they employed.
A key focus was changing behaviours to make the farm safer and the process of digitising resources led her to the development of an app, PIPA.
“It’s an all-in-one workforce management platform that sources, trains, managers and protects farm workers in all languages and learning styles,” she said.
“PIPA’s getting a 98 per cent uptake rate by users, and we can see workers proactively reporting on safety, clocking on at the start of every shift and completing tasks.”
Sam worked closely with her farmer clients and their workers in making sure that the app is accessible, joking that it’s even been made for “big fingers”.
PIPA’s also been designed with diversity in mind, cutting back dense and heavy text in favour of videos and visual resources.
“Among the farms I was consulting to, I discovered that 13 of the workers were struggling with dyslexia and all but one had told their boss out of fear of not being promoted or treated differently,” said Sam.
“After some coaching and instilling in them a knowledge that their dyslexia is in fact a superpower in our industry, they have all now had a conversation with their bosses and many as a result have gone on to complete additional training and licenses.”
PIPA also has a multi-lingual feature within the app, enabling workers from non-English speaking backgrounds to report on safety in their own language.
“PIPA has a ‘Find New Workers’ feature that profiles candidates ready to work and many are backpackers. Sometimes my clients can’t employ them because the workers can’t understand instructions or safety training.”
“As soon as somebody registers on PIPA, they can choose their preferred language. We’re now making further developments so that when a manager sends a message through the app, it’s translated into the respective language, and also enables workers to watch safety training videos in their own language.”
Since launching earlier this year PIPA has won Agriculture Victoria’s Safety on Farms Challenge, was a finalist in the AusAgritech Awards, received a grant through LaunchVic, and has been selected for the Farmers2Founders National Accelerator Scale program.
evokeAG. Startup program: ‘Opening doors I didn’t know existed’
People got a taste of the app at Startup Alley at AgriFutures evokeAG. 2025 in Brisbane.
PiP was one of 40 startups given the platform to showcase innovation, engage with industry leaders and foster commercial partnerships.
“evokeAG. opened doors I didn’t even know existed,” explained Sam. “The conversations, networks, and confidence I gained have given me the drive to scale PIPA faster and reach further than I ever thought possible.”
One of those doors has led to a partnership with leading agribusiness recruitment business, The Lucas Group.
Managing Director Tom Lucas said he had a “lightbulb moment” when he spotted PiP in the evokeAG. Startup Alley.
“This collaboration brings together our strengths in recruitment and their innovation in workplace safety and onboarding,” he said.
Tom described it as an opportunity to provide an added level of service to his clients while potentially boosting staff retention.
“Gone are the days where you are given a big onboarding manual full of hundreds of pages of written material,” said Tom.
“You can have confidence with PIPA that people have been properly trained in terms of using machinery or equipment, that can be ticked off through that on-boarding process, helping to reduce workplace accidents and injuries.”
The Lucas Group has been partnering with evokeAG. since 2023 and Tom is looking forward continuing the Lucas Group’s partnership with evokeᴬᴳ. at the Melbourne event in 2026.
“From our business perspective, the value is the networking opportunities that come from it and being part of an event that’s at the forefront of agricultural innovation,” he said.
“evokeAG. has forward-thinking people involved from that startup space through to established organisations, which means you see bold ideas and new technologies to support the growth of our industry.”
Looking outside the square in recruitment
Australian agriculture employs almost 260,000 people but there’s challenges in attracting and retaining a skilled workforce.
The Lucas Group provides executive search, recruitment, and human resource consulting across agriculture, horticulture and viticulture value chains.
Tom thinks the industry could benefit from embracing a more diverse workforce, particularly when it comes to age.
“It’s an industry that I think it’s still very single-minded when it comes to staffing, and there still seems to be an air of ageism,” he said.
“It’s going to get harder to find good people into the future unless we improve inclusion and diversity to be more open in terms of the type of people that businesses bring on-board.”
Drawing on her experience, Sam believes there’s benefits in embracing diversity.
“I’ve seen how dyslexic workers come up with the best solutions to a problem,” she said. “While we’ve been ingrained in the details of the problem, they have an incredible ability to see the bigger picture.”
Curious to see what doors the evokeAG. 2026 Startup Program could open for you?
Applications for the 2026 evokeAG. Startup Program are now open and close Friday, 24 October 2025. For more information and to apply, click here.